


mistakes I made when I was younger

by androgenius



Series: Dimilix Week [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Eye Trauma, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Pining, eye gore, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22793347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/pseuds/androgenius
Summary: Dimilix Week Day 6 - Sacrifice/SparringWhen Dimitri falls in love with Felix, the blood-spattered petals tell only half the story.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Dimilix Week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634758
Comments: 6
Kudos: 93
Collections: 2020 Dimilix Week





	mistakes I made when I was younger

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: There is very brief, very subtle eye gore in this. If that squicks you, please consider this your fair warning.

Felix joins the Golden Deer house on a Tuesday. 

Dimitri hopes it’s because of Sylvain, because their friendship was stronger than his duty to him, but he can’t help but wonder if he isn’t right in his assumption that he was simply looking for a quick and easy means of escape, a way to get away from his future king. 

Dedue stays by his side, loyal as ever, but— it’s hard to deny that he hasn’t become impossibly lonely. 

It's not even like Felix had been paying a great deal of attention to him while a part of the Blue Lions. If anything, he'd avoided Dimitri like the plague, badmouthed him to the last. Nothing has changed very much at all, really. 

He just sees Felix even less now than he did before. 

Somehow, it does not make missing him any easier.

&

The first petal is unexpected, forming on his tongue after a cough. He barely even notices how it got there at all, finally deciding that a gust of wind must have gifted him with a taste of nature. 

He dutifully ignores the fact that this particular flower isn't grown on monastery grounds at all. 

&

By the time he's coughing up several petals at a time, Dedue has begun to notice. Thankfully, he's the only one, and his problem remains one he can continue shoving under the rug, denying its presence to the rest of the world.

("Who?" Dedue asks one day, after his prince loses the ability to breathe for six seconds, pink petals littering the floor of the greenhouse. 

Dimitri shakes his head even though he knows the answer.) 

When he starts coughing mid-training sessions, it starts to become a problem, Dimitri holding his sleeve over his mouth in the hopes of keeping the petals held back long enough for him to find a worthy place to dispose of them. Someplace unsuspicious. 

Spewing them into the bushes, he's left coughing in their wake, pathetically doubled over while clutching onto a training dummy. 

Of course, then Felix has to arrive. 

"Boar," he says, a tinge of worry slipping into his voice that Dimitri doesn't dare imbibe with hope. "You gonna make it?"

_No,_ his heart tells him, screams from the rooftops. _No, I won't make it. Because you--_

"Of course," he says, offering a wan smile as he rights himself once more, his hand clutching onto his lance all the tighter. As though Felix is a threat. Then again... he is. He's killing him, isn't he? "Thank you, Felix."

"I didn't say it because--" Felix offers a huff of frustration. "I'm not even in your house anymore. It's not my job to worry about you. Your lapdog can do that."

"Ah." His throat tickles. A bad omen, he knows at least that much by now. "You are... dearly missed, Felix. It's not the same without you."

"We barely even spoke."

"I hardly recall that being my choice. I attempted-- that is to say, I wished--"

It occurs to him that this is the most Felix has spoken to him in some time. Does he feel guilt over leaving? Is that what this is? 

"It didn't take."

"I-- pardon?"

"Your wishing. It didn't take. I left, didn't I?"

A cough threatens to swallow him whole. He swallows it down. "I fail to see what that has to do with our relationship." Except, of course, everything. He's the reason Felix left, isn't he?

"Just... surprised you still care."

"If ever there comes a day when I don't--" He lets out a soft chuckle, an attempt to hide his throat's desire to cough once more. "Ah, but Felix, surely you know. I have always cared about you, and I always will. When we were younger, you would--"

"We're not children anymore. We've both grown up. People change, friendships end. And you changed far more than me."

There's bitterness in his tone that Dimitri doesn't fault him for. Letting his gaze fall to the ground, he can't help but smile, but there isn't an ounce of happiness to be found in the expression, and he doesn't dare burden Felix with it.

"So I have."

_I fell in love with the memory of you._

"I'm so tired of watching you lie to everyone about who you are."

"Is... a jester not merely a sad man who wishes for more joy in his life? You could be kinder to me, Felix."

"For what? Pretending? I'd prefer it if you were sad."

"I am sad. I miss you dreadfully."

"It was a metaphor. I don't like you pretending that you're _civil._ "

"Civility changes little. What what I gain if I acted like a beast on campus? Your friendship? Surely not. You've already decided to be done with me. And while I cannot fault you, I cannot deny--" He pauses. Takes a deep, shaky breath. Something threatens in his throat. 

"What?"

"That it breaks my heart to have you so close, and yet so far from me."

"Perhaps you should have thought about that before your first _slaughter,_ Your _Highness._ "

"What would you have of me, Felix? What must I do? I cannot unmake the past, much as I wish that I could."

"You can't. There's nothing you can do. So you might as well stop trying."

And though it had looked as though Felix had come here to spar, he leaves empty-handed all the same.

This time, when Dimitri coughs, he almost wishes Felix were here to see him in all his earnestness, in the blood scattered across the petals.

_If ever there comes a day when I don't care about you, please do me the favor of putting me out of my misery, for it will no longer be me in this worthless body of mine._

&

Dedue insists that it cannot continue. That something must be done. 

But Felix will never love him. He's forgotten how to. 

So there's only one solution. 

"I don't want help with this."

"You have a responsibility. To your kingdom, to your people-- please, Your Highness. Be reasonable."

Dimitri isn't feeling particularly reasonable, he knows at least that much. He's not sure he ever has. After all-- it's not as though Felix is the only one to have given up in him and lost hope over the last few years. What have people called him-- too soft, too empathic? Where Felix sees him as a monster beneath the surface, a wild boar, everyone else sees a weakling. He's not sure how to win, if such an option even exists in the first place. 

So when the first larger chunks start to come up and out of his lungs, he allows it to happen, a punishment for himself. 

&

"Spar with me," he says, holding a training sword out. "Please, Felix."

"No need to sound desperate," he says, sighing as he grabs the sword out of Dimitri's hand. "It's just sparring."

"Hm. Perhaps."

They used to do this all the time. He wonders if it holds as much-- if any-- sentimental value for Felix. He hopes it does, but-- then again, he doubts that Felix would want to do anything sentimental between them ever again. So he settles for what he can have, and the scraps Felix is willing to offer him. 

Under normal circumstances, they would be evenly matched. They know each other's weaknesses, the strengths to hinder. Dimitri is far more used to his lance, and it shows in his technique as much as it holds him back from completely decimating any of his sparring opponents. 

But these are hardly normal circumstances, and by the third swing, even Felix realizes that something is... off. 

" _Boar,_ " he mutters, concern lacing his tone as he stares, wide-eyed, his sword falling to the ground with a clatter. "What's with you?"

"I don't know what you mean," he says, but even then-- he knows how he's heaving for breath is far from normal, that Felix knows him better than that. 

"Like hell you don't. Answer the fucking question."

"It's nothing you need to worry yourself over."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? That you've gone to see Professor Manuela?"

"I-- no."

"Is there a particular reason you have a deathwish? You can't go into battle like this."

Dimitri lets out a laugh, soft and mirthless. He can taste copper on his tongue, the threat of a cough lingering in the back of his mind, ever-present. "You give me far too much agen--" The words are stolen away from him alongside his breath as his arm flies up to fend off any petals that wish to escape, Dimitri doubling over as he starts to hack and wheeze. 

The one moment he can spare a glance at Felix, he sees nothing but horror spreading out over his features.

He tries to say _I'm fine,_ but it doesn't dare come out, not willing to grant him that small balm on his heart. He thinks he'd do anything to stop making Felix look like he _cares._

The coughing subsides slowly only to leave him with a mouth full of petals, and blood, and he realizes that he can't just... spew it this time. He needs to be discreet. 

So he escapes, turning around to head to the nearest washroom. Felix should believe him that he threw up from coughing that much, shouldn't he? 

It doesn't take him long to finish heaving, wiping at his mouth to get the rest of the blood off of his lips and thereabouts. 

What he doesn't expect is for Felix to have followed him.

"You're an idiot."

"Felix--"

"You think _anyone_ is worth dying for? True love is a _joke_. Go to Fhirdiad and get yourself fixed up. Come back a better man. Stop wasting your time and everyone else's worrying about you."

"I don't--"

He holds up a petal, Dimitri's heart jumping to his throat as Felix tosses it aside. "You _dropped_ this while running away from your problems."

Felix has no idea how right he really is.

"Who is it? Actually-- no, don't tell me. Not like I don't already know." 

If his heart hadn't sunken already, those words would have forced it to plummet lower and lower still. He-- he _knows?_ He doesn't care. 

"It's not that simple, Felix."

"That's what they all say."

"There isn't exactly a lot left for me to live for."

Silence descends on the washroom, and for a moment, Felix is just staring at him.

It doesn't last long. Grabbing the front of his shirt, Felix backs him into the wall without fanfare or hesitation. "Have you lost your fucking mind?! You're the _future king of Faerghus!_ "

He knows. He has a duty. But his heart has never felt heavier, or his lungs fuller. And he can't breathe. 

Felix lets him go. Dimitri does little more than watch him leave. It's what he deserves, he thinks.

Maybe he was always meant to be the stepping stone Felix could use to attain greatness, the sacrifice for his success. 

He's always made a poor regent.

&

The day after Edelgard betrays them, Dimitri starts coughing up entire flowers. 

They're still small-- for now. He has a bit more time, then. A part of him wishes he could buy himself more just to see her head strung up from the gates of Enbarr, but-- 

He doesn't want to stop loving Felix, either-- or lose the ability entirely. 

There's something wonderful and comforting about the pain that he doesn't wish to escape from, not that he feels like he deserves to, at any rate. More than that, it's the only part of Felix he has left-- the only part that Felix can't take away from him. 

All the same, things get worse from there.

The guilt over his apparent death wish doesn't set in in earnest until Dedue offers his life so that he might be free and escape his execution. 

He tries to make it to Fhirdiad, then, tries to ask around for capable doctors-- anyone that might be able to help him cut his heart out and forget Felix entirely, if he must, if only in Dedue's name alone. 

But it's no use. Not with him presumed dead. Even if he could find someone who would be willing to help him, who would be capable-- he has not an ounce of the Blaiddyd fortune available to him to pay for anything. What would he pay with, his labor? He's far too clumsy to do anything refined, and the only thing he's really good at is murder. The problem is getting winded so pathetically quickly these days. 

So he climbs into a ditch in the middle of nowhere to die, sending his guilt off with a silent apology to Dedue and Felix, who had hoped for more from him. 

&

The petals are a constant, and the flowers litter the bottom of his ditch when he feels his eye start to bleed. 

Ah. 

That, too, has been sacrificed to love, then, the tendrils and roots burrowing up into and around his eye only for a flower to form over his vision. 

He barely even feels the pain anymore, if he's honest, the breaths coming so shallow now--

"Fucking-- hell-- _finally,_ " someone gasps behind him, Dimitri trying to turn around to look and failing. He knows that voice, though, knows it better than any other, Dimitri squeezing his eye shut in the hopes that Felix might not see him fade away. The tears are bad enough already, but-- he's sure he looks like hell as it is. "Do you have any idea how long I've been searching for you, you idiot?"

He opens his mouth to answer, but no sounds come out, only rasped breathing. Felix's hand is on his face, and he can't _not_ open his eyes then, he _can't,_ even if it's only to look at him one more time--

"I don't understand. Shouldn't this have gotten better? Byleth is dead--"

Wait. 

Dimitri's eye goes wide. _Byleth?_ But--

" _You,_ " he rasps, not even caring anymore in that moment. Of course it's him-- it's always been Felix. 

And then-- he looks like he's about to say something, but Dimitri doesn't want to hear it, not really. Not when he's convinced he knows what the answer will be already.

Instead, he lets his fingers close around Felix's front to pull him into a kiss. 

If he has to die, he wants it to at least be with the taste of Felix's lips on his tongue. 

What he doesn't expect is for air to flow back into his lungs, for all his breathing to suddenly get easier-- or for Felix to kiss him back, fingers threaded into his hair. 

It doesn't last long. A part of Dimitri is grateful, each breath seemingly greedier for air than the last. Still-- he's not sure even it could compare to the knowledge that comes coupled with it, that Felix... loves him back. 

"You're such an idiot," he mutters, resting his forehead against Dimitri's. 

"Yeah," he says, unable to help his smile, which feels oceanwide.

"Don't ever make me worry like that over you again."

"I am sorry about that, Felix." 

"We'll have to get you an eyepatch."

"Of course."

"You better hope it makes you sexier, or you really won't have any of your looks left."

When was the last time he smiled this much? He can't remember. 

"Come on. I'm taking you back to Fraldarius." Felix holds his hand out to him, easily pulling him up. His strength is back, he realizes faintly. He feels almost half-human again. "I obviously can't trust you not to get yourself killed without me."

"Thank you, Felix," he says, and pulls him in for another kiss. 

There are months, years apart to make up for, and Dimitri doesn't dare squander away a single one.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell about dimilix with me over on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/androugenius)!


End file.
